This blog post has more than a few interesting tips and strategies to differentiate your glass-blowing business, with some real-world examples of how they can benefit you. Learn more here!
The art of glass blowing is an involved and arduous process that takes time, effort, and a willingness to commit totally to achieve mastery. The art of running a glass business is even harder. With so many talented glass artists seeking success and recognition for their craft, it can feel like your own work is obscured in the ever-growing market of custom glass. To overcome the generic, to become the iconic, and to climb the perilous mountain of glass-making notoriety means that you must find a way to differentiate your glass-blowing business. Lucky for you, this blog post has more than a few interesting tips and strategies to differentiate your glass-blowing business, with some real-world examples of how they can benefit you, found in other talented glass artists who utilize them!
Define Your Unique Value
With how vast the burgeoning glass market has become, there comes a distinct and necessary desire for the unique and valuable. What defines unique value? For starters, it’s something that transcends the status quo of production, something that unexpectedly catches the eye. Something that isn’t generic but wholly and unmistakably yours. What your unique value is depends on what you want to say with your glass. How is it different, either stylistically or functionally, from the bland glasswork mass produced and without the important and distinct signature of the artist.
Giggle Glass Artist Example: Aaron U Glass
Aaron Uretsky is a great example of a glass artist whose defined their unique value in their glass work. When you browse Aaron’s eclectic catalogue of glasswork, you’re immediately going to notice the distinct aesthetic and designs of his pipes and bongs. Whimsically psychedelic linework interwoven with bombastic coloring works to make his pieces jump from the page and play upon the imagination of the glass enthusiast. This distinct style, made wholly his own, is what sets his glass apart and exemplifies its unique value in the glass market.
Branding & Storytelling
Your glass can act as more than just pretty pieces of eye-candy, as most successful glass-artists can tell you: having your work reflect a story or a brand elevates your work above the rest. Having a strong sense of branding and storytelling not only helps you keep your work set on a consistent theme and style that defines your own sense of the art, but it also informs the interested glass enthusiast of what to expect of your work, both presently and in the future. This helps foster a committed party of fans who appreciate your work specifically because they know exactly what you create, and what you’re going to create will still resonate with them.
Giggle Glass Artist Example: 603 Glass
Joe Forrestall of 603 Glass knows exactly how to capitalize on a strong sense of branding and storytelling. As an active fisherman, hunter, whitewater rafter, and conservationist, he’s taken these interests and let them define his work in a way that creates a consistent style and brand that is unique to him and completely authentic. His work involves intricate recreations of recognizable fish species into carefully crafted smoking glass.
Customer Experience as Differentiator
When you provide a unique customer experience, you further establish your glass business as one that caters to the customer and keeps them coming back for more. You can accomplish this by providing your customers with things like quality glass for affordable prices, or fulfilling a niche of a certain customer base.
Giggle Glass Artist Example: DiceBoix
Diceboix is a glass artist who understands that providing a quality customer experience by offering unique but affordable custom glass goes a long way in retaining a customer base. Working from his farm in the Dunes of Indiana, his glass is both eye-catching and affordable – a challenging balance to achieve in custom glass work, but one that he achieves, providing a quality customer experience that customers respond to in a very positive way.
Strategic Collaboration & Positioning
A successful glass business may seem a result of being in the right place with the right people, yet this doesn’t have to be left to chance. Collaborating with other talented glass-artists or positioning yourself to work in tandem with your local headshops helps you continuously refine your glass-blowing process as well as stay in constant business.
Giggle Glass Artist Example: Hubbard Glass
Chris Hubbard is a glass artist who utilized strategic collaboration and positioning to his advantage. Originally struck with the unfortunate circumstance of a run-in with the law due to a misunderstanding, he found himself fully invested in glass-blowing to pay his way forward – working with local headshops to earn himself the cash he needed to pay off legal fines. From there, he realized the earning potential of working with headshops and, later in his glassblowing career, he’s bunked up in a studio shared with a fellow glassblower. This collaboration helped both artists work off of each other, sharing tools and experience in a way that grew their glass art and business success. Hubbard’s story is one that shows how even when put in an unexpected situation, strategic collaboration and smart positioning can be a lucrative choice to a successful glass business.
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Marketing That Highlights Difference
You want your glass to be known for its unique qualities? In that case, you have to show the world this uniqueness through marketing that highlights the difference. Whether it’s through sharing your art on social media while highlighting your unique process, or sharing your personal story in a blog post that gives insight into how you inject your unique artistry into your glass, any form of sharing what makes you and your glass different goes to increases your chances of differentiating your glass business.
Scaling Without Losing Identity
Once you start seeing considerable success in your glass business, it comes time to expand production and scale upward. However, the tricky thing about scaling up is to do so without losing your unique vision and personality in the process. To avoid this mistake, scale appropriately to your demand. Don’t feel the need to rush into the mass production of your glass if you think it will sacrifice its quality or uniqueness. Slow and steady is always the way to go if you want to keep your glass business continuously different from the competition.
Conclusion
Running a glass business that is both successful and unique, hopefully, seems like a little bit less of a challenge now. With your fellow glass artists leading by example of the ways to differentiate your glass business, you can also easily follow in their footsteps and, soon enough, forge ahead on your own path as you trailblaze your own journey of unique custom glass that is set apart from the rest. If you keep your vision, you won’t have to worry about your glass becoming generic, so utilize these tips to help keep your glass business different and successful!
